


Masterpiece

by dralexreid



Series: Dr Piper Bishop [27]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:40:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27055066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dralexreid/pseuds/dralexreid
Summary: When a narcissistic psychopath confesses to Dr Reid that he has killed seven people and more will die, the team must locate his latest victims before it is too late.
Relationships: Dr Spencer Reid/Dr Piper Bishop
Series: Dr Piper Bishop [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1972852
Kudos: 21





	Masterpiece

Spencer felt his palms sweat in his pockets in front of the dozens of students in front of him, his only encouragement coming from an award-winning author and natural public speaker. He felt ridiculously out-of-place, wanting nothing more than to switch places with the students in front of him. That felt more natural than anything else. Unconsciously, he felt at the cell in his pocket, remembering the text Piper had shot him. “ _Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. You got this.”_ He smiled before delivering his practised lines. “Most of us have done extensive post-graduate work in areas such as abnormal psychology and sociology, as well as intensive study of relative casework and existing literature.”

“But that’s after selection to the unit,” Rossi interrupted, gesturing his arms widely to the young students in front of him. “First you have to be an agent, work in the field, and that’s what we’re here to talk about. For that, the academics are wide open. Everyone in this room, once you graduate, regardless of your course study, is eligible to apply to the FBI.” He listened patiently as a young man asked what he studied. “Criminal justice, but sports appreciation was all full up at my community college.” Spencer was jealous of Rossi’s charisma, wishing his own voice had a little more tenacity and charm. Lost in his own thoughts, he almost missed Rossi’s cue to him to list his own credentials.

“I hold doctorates in chemistry, mathematics, and engineering, As well as BAs in psychology and sociology.” He felt all eyes on him and while he felt proud of those degrees and his achievements, a part of him yearned to be normal. After what seemed like eons, a young woman piped up in the middle rows.

“How old are you?”

“Uh, I’m 27. As of last month, I turned 27. I’m–I’m also completing an additional BA in philosophy.” The silence prompted him to remember Piper’s advice and her laugh at his jokes. “Which reminds me that I have a joke. How many existentialists does it take to screw in a light bulb?” He asked the group as Rossi stared at him, hissing at him to stop. Regardless, he continued. “2. One to change the light bulb and one to observe how it symbolizes an incandescent beacon of subjectivity in a netherworld of cosmic nothingness.” He laughed, scanning the audience for a response, yet they just stared back at them. “Um, an existentialist would—"

“Okay, before he does his quantum physics knock-knock joke—” Rossi intervened. “Do we have any other questions about opportunities in the FBI?” The lecture over, the two agents packed up their belongings as the students left the hall. “You do know we want them to actually join the bureau?”

“What?”

“We want these kids to think it’s a cool place to work.”

“I understand that.”

“Existentialism?”

“Existentialism is– That was a funny joke. What do you mean?”

“Yeah, to Sigmund Freud.”

“I tell them I shouldn’t– they keep on sending me here. I don’t know why.”

“Because you’re young.”

“Young or Jung?” Spencer scoffed before he was interrupted by a middle-aged George Costanza look-alike with hippie white hair.

“Dr Reid? Wouldn’t they sit in the dark and hope that the bulb decided to light again?”

“Excuse me?”

“An existentialist would never change the bulb. He would allow the darkness to exist.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty good.”

“I’m Professor Rothschild. It was a brilliant presentation. Brilliant. You’re a remarkably effective recruitment tool. The FBI is very lucky to have you.”

“Thank you for saying that.”

“May I show you something?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“It’s all right here.” Spencer grasped the folder from the professor’s outstretched hands, flipping through several pictures of young men and women. 7 homicide victims. 7 women. The bodies have never been found. Not a fingernail, not a hair fibre. Acid is a very tidy way of disposing of something. “There is still time to save the others, though. In a bit less than 9 hours, 5 other people are going to be dead. Unless you can find a way to save them,” the professor said casually, in a calm and measured voice.

^-^

At the Bureau office, Piper sat perched on her table and broke contact with the news screen to see Reid and Rossi walk in with their suspect. As Rossi took the man away from the bullpen and into an interrogation facility, Spencer approached her. “Guess your lecture went well,” she scoffed. “Found our 5 victims. Kaylee Robinson, she’s been abducted with 4 children from her at-home daycare centre. You have a preliminary profile?”

“Piper, I talked to him for like 7 minutes.”

“Yeah, and what’s your theory?”

“Textbook narcissist. Inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration and a lack of empathy for others.”

“Jesus. I hate narcissists.” She groaned, pushing herself off the table. “You know, most narcissists, in reality, have fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism.”

“Doesn’t fit this guy. Might even be delusional.”

“Well, Rossi seems pissed.” They walked over to the adjacent room where they could watch the interrogation. Rossi and Derek started circling the man in handcuffs and a few minutes later, they left and joined Bishop and Reid in the other room.

“What do you two think? We have a strategy?” Derek asked the trio. Piper twisted her mouth in thought, surveying the man.

“Narcissist huh? The only thing he’s gonna talk about is himself.” She glanced at Spencer who caught on immediately.

“Two-pronged strategy?”

“Mmhmm. One person who can pander, the other who just doesn’t care.”

“We need to identify the original 7 women,” Rossi noted. “Going back in there with names just might shake him up.”

“How do we do that?” Spencer asked.

“Reverse profiling. Learn everything we can about him and his methods and then profile it back to what kind of victim he would choose and from where. From the unsub to the victim.” They left to review the case in the conference room. Garcia complained about the thousands of missing women reports filed throughout the country as Spencer circled the room in thought.

“Kaylee was abducted at 9:30 this morning,” Piper outlined, tossing a marker in her hand. “He had time to take them somewhere, hide them, and make it to Fredericksburg 2 hours later.”

“He’d need a place with a lot of privacy to hide 5 victims,” Emily added. “A house?”

“He’s local but he was late for the presentation, 5 hours after the abduction. He got there around noon, which puts him somewhere around that radius. Garcia work up a map,” Spencer asked. “We need the farthest point he could have taken Kaylee from Loretto and still gotten back to Fredericksburg by noon.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Garcia claimed.

“All right, what do we know so far? He’s obsessively neat and clean. He did research on Reid and me at least. He’s abducted 5 people, and then gets to a scheduled recruitment session at a specific time. That’s extensive pre-planning,” Rossi dictated to Piper as she jotted down notes on their investigation board.

“Did you find anything in those pictures, Garcia?” she called out to her, but Penelope just shook her head, saying she couldn’t even confirm if they were dead.

“What about hair colour?”

“All the ones that show hair, they appear to be brunettes.”

“So’s Kaylee.”

“I’ll start there. Brunettes from central Virginia that are missing,” Garcia noted

“We got zip on his prints. He’s not in any system,” Derek added as he looked at Piper from his cell.

“So, he’s a ghost,” Piper nodded.

“If he hasn’t been fingerprinted, he hasn’t been arrested. Also means he hasn’t had a passport, driver’s license, or been in the military.”

“Or a teacher,” Piper added. “He introduced himself as a professor, but you have to be fingerprinted to teach.”

“What kind of professor doesn’t actually teach?” Todd scoffed.

“Actually, a lot of professors are researchers on a grant. That could be a way to track him down.”

“There must be some sort of central grant database. I can’t imagine the government just handing out money and not– I’ll look into it,” Garcia announced as she packed up her things to move back into her BatCave.

“From past conversations, we know he’s a narcissist and seemingly remorseless, textbook psychopath,” Rossi summed up.”

“You know, we can eliminate a lot of these open missing person cases if we could just figure out how he met them,” Hotch pointed out and Rossi nodded, turning to Emily.

“Prentiss, I need you to do something for me.” Emily got up immediately, sweeping hair away from her eyes. As they left, Piper turned from the board to Spencer.

“I never have any normal fans,” Spencer murmured, and Piper laughed.

“Rossi said you told the kids that existentialism joke.”

“Yeah, no-one laughed,” Piper smirked. “Don’t make that face. The only reason I told them that joke was because you laughed at it last week.”

“Yeah, well, I know what existentialism is, Reid. They probably didn’t.” Piper said as she pinned up the pictured of the 5 victims. “How come you’re not going in there with Rossi?”

“He doesn’t want me in there. Says it’d be playing into Rothschild’s hands.” Piper nodded.

“I guess he does have a point.”

“I don’t know how he does it,” Spencer whined wistfully. Piper simply raised an eyebrow and joined Spencer’s perch on the table. “You should have seen Rossi. He had this…”

“Charisma?” She bumped shoulders with Spencer. “You shouldn’t feel bad, Spence. He isn’t an academic and he doesn’t have half the qualifications you do. Don’t sell yourself short. Now, let’s figure out this fan of yours.”

The team worked efficiently on their own tasks. Bishop noted further behavioural quirks as Reid recounted the details of the meeting to her. Prentiss pushed Rothschild’s buttons as she put him on the defensive while Rossi kept trying to garner information from him. Hotch oversaw Garcia’s work until she opened an anonymous email with a link to www.goldenrat.com. It revealed a live stream of their most recent victims, except one, was missing. Hotch called the team into the BatCave and they watched the stream of 3 children and a young woman clinging to gas masks. Hotch noted how the gas masks stretched them evenly across the lengthy hallway. “How we doing with the seven missing women?”

“So far, I’ve got 39 missing brunettes in central Virginia.”

“Okay, 30 years old like Kaylee. Narcissists tend to be extremely preferential.”

“28.”

“He said he’s been working on this for 5 years,” Rossi added.

“Over the last 5 years, 17.”

“All right, if he thinks he’s going to jail for even one of the original 7 homicides, maybe he’ll tell us where the rest of them are and give himself some deal room. Dave, can I talk to you for a minute?” Hotch pulled him outside and Piper shrugged at Garcia’s gaze. As the four agents narrowed down the 17 cases, Hotch discussed Rossi’s progress. “I was thinking maybe we should give Reid a shot.”

“You think he’s smarter than me?”

“No. Intelligence is just part of the profile.”

“We’re not talking about intelligence. We’re not changing in midstream, Hotch. I have a rapport. This is my interview.”

“Okay. Let me know if there’s anything we can do.” Hotch left Rossi staring at the man in the other room. _Was he smarter than him?_ He shook away his doubts and entered the interrogation room.

“Do you know that I was born with an extra y chromosome?”

“So?”

“You don’t know what that means?”

“It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means… I was born to be a killer.” Rossi laughed.

“Now that’s funny.”

“Oh, no, no, no. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. I have an extra y; it makes me a killer.”

“That’s junk science; a joke. It was debunked years ago.”

“So, you don’t believe that killing is genetic?”

“It’s not a matter of me believing it. It isn’t true. Killing someone or not killing someone is a choice. If those people die, it’s because you chose to make it happen,” Rossi spat at the arrogant bastard in front of him.

Meanwhile, Piper jotted down 7 named from five locations. “That’s weird.”

“What?” Hotch looked up from the stream.

“We have one murder in Richmond, then one in Dinwiddie, two in Gloucester Point, and then three in Saluda.” Reid approached the board as Piper scribbled the numbers: _11235_

“1 1 2 3 5,” Spencer murmured. “The Fibonacci sequence…” He trailed off.

“So?” Piper asked him. He didn’t deign to give a response. Instead, he sprinted like a floundering goose towards the interrogation room, barged in and snatched Rothschild’s necklace.

“I know where to find them,” he hissed to the man in white before running back to the conference room. As he stumbled back into the room, he asked Garcia to put up a map of Virginia, pinpointing the five crime scenes. Holding up the pendant from Rothschild’s neck, he started to explain. “It’s an irrational number known as ‘phi.’ It’s based on the ratio of line segments to each other and of the whole. It’s called the golden ratio.”

“Golden rat– that’s the web address, goldenrat[.](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fgoldenrat.net&t=MzMyYWFlMWEyYjJhNjM2OWZiMmM5ZGZjZGQ1MGIyNmRiNWYyODhjNSxQd292WFR4Sg%3D%3D&b=t%3AHcX-3rdvXqUjm07mzlZkXg&p=https%3A%2F%2Fneed-a-new-hobby.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F628245628992028672%2Fmasterpiece&m=1&ts=1602899622)net,” Garcia added.

“It’s a ratio found all through life. In fact, many people that we find conventionally attractive are proportioned based on that ratio. He, uh, he made a reference to Leonardo da Vinci, remember this? Da Vinci used it in a lot of his paintings. A matter of fact, the Last Supper—” He went off on a tangent until Hotch set him back on course. “The whole concept is represented by this pendant, including the logarithmic spiral created by using a Fibonacci sequence.” Piper stared at him blankly and so he changed tack. “Garcia, can you layer an image of the pendant on the map?” She followed his instruction and Reid kept throwing out instructions, flipping the spiral 180 degrees and making it bigger. “Okay, the pendant is like a key, right? It has to be in Chester.”

“Spence, you’re sure?” Piper asked, uncertainly. Math was never her strong suit, but seeing Reid’s determined expression made her lose any remnant of doubt in her mind. “Okay, so now what?”

“Now, we move. I’ll get a chopper to get us to Chester. Todd and Morgan can meet us there.” As Piper and Spencer shifted to get their tactical gear, Rossi gazed at the map, feeling as though something was still missing. As Piper, Hotch, Spencer and Emily raced to the SUV to get to the chopper, Rossi re-entered the interrogation room.

“Chester, Virginia.”

“What?”

“The whole team is going there.”

“I see.”

“They’ll be there before 4:00; before the next deadline. You lose.” Rossi spat at him. “Explain something to me– this is all about a geometric pattern?”

“Phi is much more than a geometric pattern, David.”

“Killing all those women– Kaylee Robinson, the first seven? You killed them because they were beautiful?”

“You mean hypothetically?”

“Well, I’m just trying to understand this math thing.”

“All animals desperately need a way to detect others of their species. Dogs have a scent, dolphins have sound. The golden ratio is a subconscious identifier of perfect humanness. If I had done all these things, it wouldn’t be because they were beautiful. It would be because they were perfect examples of humanity.”

“Because they’re human?”

“Hypothetically speaking.”

“This doesn’t make any sense to me. Killing a human because they’re human?”

“Do you know what homo sapiens sapiens actually means, David? Its literal translation?”

“No.”

“Man, wise, wise. Think about that. We named ourselves doubly wise. We are twice as wise as every other creature on the planet. The hubris, the arrogance. Humans are a blight. We should all be eradicated.”

“You hate humanity?”

“Every bit as much as you do.”

“I don’t hate humanity.”

“I told you, I read all of your books. It’s in there, every one of them. Your hatred. Your first book, chapter 3, page 89, 1, 3…89. All Fibonacci numbers. ‘The first time I saw one of William Grace’s victims,’ 'I knew I was looking at the residue of pure evil.’ 'I would never again feel completely safe around a human being.’”

“This is all about my books?”

“Like you, I know exactly what human beings are capable of. I can hate the things people do but have pity for who they are.”

“Pity? You pity them?”

“Any man who feels that the only way to have power or purpose is to hurt others deserves pity. Your fifth book, chapter 13, page 144. 'I know it makes little sense to try and deter violence with more violence. But deterrence is not why I believe in the death penalty. There are some people that are so violent, so evil, that society has no choice but to be done with them. Vengeance is something that society needs from time to time, if, for no other purpose, than to keep the rest of us sane.' Where is the pity? Vengeance keeps us sane. What a fascinating statement. You may have your vengeance, as I am about to have… Mine.”

“What?”

“They’re never going to make it out of that house, David. It was never about that perfect woman or those wonderful children. It is about your team. Your merry band of five. They complete my sequence. The minute they stepped into that house; they were dead. I knew if I kept prodding you that you would rise to my challenge.”

_“Hotch isn’t answering.”_

“Try Morgan.”

“I knew… That you would insist on being in the room alone with me; that you would try to beat me. I knew you would send them all out there.”

_“No, nothing.”_

“Try Prentiss or Reid! It’s a trap, stop them!”

“But you’re not just filled with hatred, David. You’re also filled with arrogance. Hubris, just like every other human being. Just like me.”

_“I can’t reach anyone!”_

“Try again!”

“They’re never going to answer. You lose.”

“Why? What did I ever do?”

“William Grace. The man you called the face of pure evil. My brother. My life ended the day you arrested him. Every time people talked about William Grace, they always talked about his parents and his brother Henry. Because no one could believe that anyone that evil could possibly hide in the darkness. Surely someone must have seen, someone must have known– Surely his own brother. I had a fiancee, David. A beautiful woman. A perfect woman. She sent the ring back to me. She said she was afraid to give it to me in person. She was afraid of me. She was a brunette. So, then I started getting these thoughts, these ideas, these images inside my head. I couldn’t–I couldn’t escape them. And then I realised, my brother hadn’t been alone in the darkness. I shared the same genetics you so casually dismiss. I started a second life. No one knew, but something… Was missing. I couldn’t figure it out. And then… David Rossi, the man that ruined my life. And suddenly, I knew what it was that was missing. Because you… Have written it. Vengeance.”

“Vengeance. You murdered all those women just because of me?”

“That’s right. I killed 12 people… Because of you. You took my family. I take yours.” Rossi straightened, pulling gently on his sleeves, thumbs brushing over maple leaf cufflinks.

“Did you get all that, Garcia?” He called into the monitor and watched the realisation of what had just happened register on Henry Grace’s, sorry, Mr Rothschild’s face.

_“Every word, boss.”_

“Well, make copies before we give it to the US attorney. This might make a pretty good teaching aid.”

“Teaching?” Grace muttered.

“Yeah. I teach interrogation at the FBI academy,” Rossi remarked casually, whipping out his cell and dialling Hotch. “Garcia said I got it right?”

_“Yeah, about everything. We found the acid tanks around back. The acid would have covered the whole area outside the room. There were spigots everywhere. The entry was booby-trapped.”_

“And what about Kaylee and the kids?”

_“They’re fine. You were right about them. They were just one of the decoys.”_

“That was Reid who figured out his obsession with those numbers. He wasn’t about to kill 10 people this afternoon. That’s not in the pattern.”

_“You get your confession?”_

“Took some doing. Thank you.” Rossi slipped the phone in his pocket, then turned to the mirror behind him the straighten his blazer. “You’d be charged with kidnapping, but Kaylee and the kids, they’re all safe. You’ll only face murder charges on the original seven women.”

“With no evidence?”

“Yeah. You, uh, you mentioned that when we first met, that we would never be able to get you on those. But I think you’ll discover that the videotaped confession has the power to move a lot of jurors.” Rossi smiled at him politely before walking past when he felt the man tackle him from the back. Rossi whipped around, shoving Henry Grace into the wall, pinning him with his arm across Henry’s chest. “You waited until I turned my back, didn’t you, Henry? Just like you did with those women.” Henry struggled against Dave. “Don’t give me a reason to hurt you! And one more thing– I’m going to be there when they strap you down for that lethal injection. And just before they hit the plunger, I’m going to lean in really close and tell you to say hello to your scumbag brother.” Rossi shoved him before wiping his hands and slamming the door behind him as he left.

Emily leaned against the door to their SUV as Spencer approached her. She nodded with a smirk to Derek and Jordan who were bickering on the path to their own SUV. “That is gonna be fun.” Spencer chuckled.

“Yeah, Derek’s gonna have a tough time with her.” Emily breathed out in relief. “Where’s Piper?” She pointed over to the young doctor with a little kid hooked on her back, a huge smile on both faces. Spencer’s soft smile wasn’t lost on Emily.

“Hard to believe she’s single.” Spencer’s head jerked towards Emily.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” Emily said, biting back a smirk. “Just that she’d be very attractive to a lot of people.” She left him flustered, scratching his head as she called out to Piper for them to leave.


End file.
